The present invention relates to the marriage of the Internet with telephony systems, and more specifically, to a system, method and article of manufacture for using the Internet as the communication backbone of a communication system architecture while maintaining a rich array of call processing features.
The present invention relates to the interconnection of a communication network including telephony capability with the Internet. The Internet has increasingly become the communication network of choice for the consumer marketplace. Recently, software companies have begun to investigate the transfer of telephone calls across the internet. However, the system features that users demand of normal call processing are considered essential for call processing on the Internet. Today, those features are not available on the internet.
According to a broad aspect of a preferred embodiment of the invention, telephone calls, data and other multimedia information is routed through a hybrid network which includes transfer of information across the internet utilizing telephony routing information and internet protocol address information. A telephony order entry procedure captures complete user profile information for a user. This profile information is used by the system throughout the telephony experience for routing, billing, monitoring, reporting and other telephony control functions. Users can manage more aspects of a network than previously possible and control network activities from a central site, while still allowing the operator of the telephone system to maintain quality and routing selection. A directory service that supports a hybrid communication system architecture is provided for routing traffic over the hybrid network and the internet.